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Thursday of the Thirteenth week in Ordinary Time

Commentary of the day
Saint John Chrysostom (c.345-407), priest at Antioch then Bishop of Constantinople, Doctor of the Church
Homilies on Saint Matthew's Gospel, no.29, 2 ; PG 57, 359

"Courage, child, your sins are forgiven."

The scribes declared that God alone can forgive sins. But Jesus, even before he forgave sins, revealed the secrets of the heart thereby showing that he also possessed that other power reserved to God... For it is written: “You alone, O Lord, know the secrets of humankind” and “Man sees the outward appearance but God sees the heart” (2Chr 6,30; 1Sam 16,7). In this way Jesus reveals his divinity and equality with the Father, uncovering the depths of their hearts to the scribes and making known those thoughts they are afraid to speak openly for fear of the crowd. And this he did with great gentleness...

The lame man might have made his disappointment known to Christ by saying: “OK! You have come to cure another kind of sickness and heal another kind of evil – sin. But what proof am I going to get that my sins are forgiven?” Yet he said nothing of the sort but put his trust in the one who had the power to heal him...

To the scribes Christ said: “Which is easier? To say: Your sins are forgiven, or rather: Take up your stretcher and go home?” In other words: What seems easier to you? To strengthen a paralyzed body or put aside the sins of the soul? Obviously, to heal a body since forgiveness of sins goes as much beyond the healing as the soul is above the body. But since one of these works is visible and the other not, I am equally going to carry out the work that is visible and lesser in order to prove that which is greater and unseen. At that very moment Jesus witnessed by his works that he is “He who takes away the sins of the world” (Jn 1,29).